Understanding elder financial abuse

Intro:
Hello and welcome to the CPA Australia Podcast your source for business leadership and public practice accounting information.

Richard:
The financial abuse of older people is a significant and growing problem in the Australian community. It's been defined as the illegal or improper use of a person's finances or property by another person with whom they have a relationship implying trust. It's estimated that up to 5 percent of people over 65 years of age are victims.

However, the real extent of this form of abuse may be much higher as it's believed to be significantly under-reported.

Hello, my name is Richard Blakeman. I'm an FCPA and I've been a CPA Australia member for almost 40 years. I'm a past chair of the CPA Australia Victorian Division third age committee, a current member of the Victorian Divisional Council now retired from full time employment and Industry and Commerce but have since held a number of voluntary board and committee roles in a not for profit sector in what I like to call my active retirement.

One of those roles was as co-convener of the CPA Australia elder financial abuse task force that developed the online tool kit that you will hear more today in this podcast. With me today are two fellow CPA's and past members of the elder financial abuse task force Anna Tantau and Stephen Jones.

Anna Tantau CPA was a partner in the accounting and consulting firm Page Tantau for nine years and is currently a senior manager with SEIVA. Anna comes to the discussion with over 25 years’ experience in accounting across various sectors of industry including local government, retailing and public accounting and as a past member of the Victorian division public practice Committee and is a sessional member of the Victorian civil and administrative tribunal VCAT is on the way she is on the guardianship list. Anna's experience in that role includes appointing guardians and administrators for people who do not have the capacity to make decisions for themselves including many older people. Welcome Anna.

Stephen Jones is an FCPA and a founding partner in the accounting and consulting firm ATM Consultants Pty Ltd . He's a long serving member of the public practice committee is a tax trainer for CPA Australia. Stephen's broad experience in dealing with clients issues particularly those in small business made him an invaluable contributor to the work of the elder financial abuse task force on top of all that Stephen's keen sportsman with a mean golf swing. Welcome Stephen.

Stephen:
Thank you, Richard.

Richard:
Anna, let's start with you. What is elder financial abuse?

Anna:
Hello Richard. Well financial abuse which you described earlier as being where somebody with whom a person trusts improperly uses someone else's finances or property. The abuse can be either intentional or unintentional. It can start with a very you know a very legitimate reason. But over time perhaps the worst happens or the intention changes or it snowballs in some way.

Richard:
Well, in your experience then what are the motivators for financial abuse. Who are the perpetrators. Why do they do it?

Anna:
Unfortunately, the perpetrators are often family members. Evidence has shown that probably the most common perpetrator are adult sons and the most common victims are mothers or women. The reason they do it probably you could describe it as having a sense of entitlement to the finances or the assets of the victim. It could be through greed where it's perhaps a carer or a friend or a colleague acquaintance the person knows that that the older person has assets and sets about to obtain some of them. It could be that the perpetrator has a problem such as addiction, gambling, alcohol something like that.

Richard:
Okay so it appears then that those key things there is a sense of entitlement that people believe that they're entitled to the funds. They don't see it as abuse often. Stephen do you believe that the issue of financial abuse or in your experience is the issue of financial abuse of older people an important one in the scheme of things and is it any more important an issue now than it was in previous generations?

Stephen:
Oh, I think so Richard. I think it's growing in importance and becoming more prevalent in society and probably some of the reasons for that are that older generations are now living longer and we probably have a greater incidence of issues around capacity things like dementia and Alzheimer's and so on. We have a generation that's probably accumulated more wealth than previous generations and as well as that we also have a lot of more mixed family circumstances where there are a number of different people perhaps involved in the care of the older people. So I think probably there is a lot more opportunity for financial abuse to occur than perhaps did in the past.

Richard:
So there's more opportunity and a greater sense of entitlement along with it. So Anna I'm wondering have you come across incidences of financial abuse in your practice and in your experience how does it impact the victim and their families?

Anna:
In my practice probably I've seen more potential incidences of financial abuse. You see that where perhaps you've got an asset rich older people. They've paid off their homes. They may have built up some superannuation or some investments. And often their need for income goes down then you might have a younger generation of the family who are starting up in business or want to acquire assets or grow their own wealth. So the older parents are often seen as people that they can use for guarantors for loans bank loans. The banks will often ask for guarantors or it may be that they see them as actual lenders so adult members of families may actually ask their parents for example for direct loans. The reason that this can be a problem is that family loans tend to be unsecured and they tend to be undocumented or poorly documented.

Richard:
Right, so documentation's obviously one of the key things to help prevent or guard against that. But I'm just thinking then so what you're saying is potentially this is this is a regime that often happens in families isn't it a person loans money to their children. That money is lost. It may well have been not intentional abuse but it could be what you describe before as unintentional abusers. Is that right?

Anna:
That's exactly right. And often what happens is that the adult children have been to the bank for a loan and the bank has said well you need a guarantor because you don't have enough security yourself. So they'll go to their parents and say well would you be guarantor. Now it won't affect you. I'll be paying off the loan. But in actual fact the person going guarantor has full liability for paying that loan. If the borrower defaults and it's often a bit of a warning sign because the bank has assessed that perhaps this is high risk and so they want that security. So the older person is giving the security on what might be higher risk loan than otherwise.

Stephen:
And Anna you're a bit like us in practice. People often think oh that won't happen. You know we'll pay the loan and everything and things will be rosy and we see enough cases every now and then if things don't go according to plan and then we find that the older person has been out of pocket.

Anna:
And that's correct and as accountants we always like to look at the worst case scenario. We tend to be conservative and say oh well what if interest rates went up. What if your cash flow went down but these arrangements are often made without the professional help of an accountant or a lawyer or anyone else. There are just family discussions and they don't think like that. They think yes we'll be able to pay the loan and yes interest rates will always be low and there won't be any problems.

Richard:
Well, I'm just wondering I mean these all sound like family arrangements and I'm wondering Stephen what relevance this this have for accountants do you think?

Stephen:
Well, I think as part of our profession it is clearly part of our responsibility. We're probably one of the few groups that has access to the sort of financial information that might indicate some sort of financial abuse. So if we recognize it we shouldn't we shouldn't ignore it. But in reality that applies probably to any sort of financial abuse not just to the elderly.

Richard:
And many people trust their accountants don't they? Surveys have shown that accountants are one of the most trusted professions so that do trust their accountants. Stephen in your practice though have you come across any instances of abuse?

Stephen:
We've probably seen some over the years and be fair to say Richard that I probably didn't necessarily recognize it always as elder financial abuse until we started this program because there's lots of things that probably happen that that perhaps didn't necessarily strike me as being elder financial abuse. But once we start talking about it you realise the potential. One good example we had was that we had a grandmother who ended up being a director of a company at the request of the bank because they wanted a directors guarantee from because she was the one with assets before they did before they lent money to the grandson to kick off his business. And the interesting case because she was quite happy to be in that role and didn't see that as abuse at all. And the risks to her were quite significant obviously.

Richard:
It sounds like a typical instance. Well, you mentioned that it's relevant to your accountants. So Stephen what is the role of the accountant in addressing financial abuse what is the role?

Stephen:
Well I think a major role is really to make sure that people fully understand the implications of their decisions. We want to make sure that they're informed I think often they don't necessarily understand the risks. And I think that probably applies to both parties so we might have we might have the son or you know who's trying to start up a new business and so on and doesn't necessarily understand the risk that he's putting his parents out or in terms of what in terms of the transaction that they're entering into. So I think for us if we can provide them with that information they can then make an informed decision. And the reality is it's their right to make that decision whether it be a good or a bad decision. So but if the best we can do is make sure they're fully informed and they know exactly what the risks and the potential implications are, then they make that decision in an informed manner. We probably sometimes come across some extreme cases where maybe we might suspect that somebody may be under pressure or they lack capacity to actually make that informed decision and so in those cases we might want to refer them to one of the appropriate bodies that you'll see in the toolkit.

Richard:
So really what you're saying then is the accountant’s role is that people have to make their own decisions with the accountant’s role is to make sure that they're informed decisions.

Stephen:
Yeah, I think so, yeah.

Richard:
Okay that's very... Anna you mentioned before then that you've come across a number of instances of potential abuse. For an accountant what are the sort of signs the accountant should look out for in recognising the potential for abuse?

Anna:
Yes, well you can look at this from two angles. One is from the point of view of the victim. Now if we've got a client who is older and who is perhaps the potential victim what we'd be looking for is have they become more vulnerable? Do they have a change in their circumstances which perhaps makes them more vulnerable. Have they been ill? have they perhaps lost their spouse and the spouse was the one that always took care of the finances. Perhaps they have or seemed to have reduced capacity and understanding for their affairs. They may have become more dependent on other people and become more isolated from the community and from people and services.

The other side that you would look at is the potential perpetrators and these may be your clients. They may be people who are building up businesses or starting businesses or growing their businesses have cash flow needs for their own purposes for their business needs. And perhaps you know if they've come to you for advice you might be able to see that oh they don't really have much chance of getting a bank loan or something like that. So you know you may just have your radar on about that maybe your you can advise them so that they're aware that the actions that they take may constitute financial abuse.

Richard:
OK so what you're saying then is that the accountants should be more slightly more aware of the potential for abuse where a person has become suddenly isolated for instance suddenly widowed perhaps or.

Anna:
Yes.

Richard:
Or for whatever reasons perhaps health reasons are more dependent or vulnerable.

Anna:
Yes, and we often we may not know that straight away but we may but will generally find out about that at some point soon after. If we if we do preparing tax returns or doing some work for the client.

Richard:
Well, they're the sort of signs that would indicate the potential for abuse. Are there any sort of signs that would indicate that abuse is actually happening? The sorts of things that the accountant should look out for that might indicate that the potential has been realised and that somebody is actually abusing them.

Anna:
Yes. Well some of the signs that you might see are you know when the client comes in that they're perhaps different to how they used to be. Perhaps they're more reserved they're fearful or stressed or lacking understanding perhaps they've got proposed change of living arrangements. One of the things that often occurs is that if the older person is isolated and vulnerable that family will often arrange for them to go and live with one of them. And it might be the arrangements we often refer to it as assets for care. So the older person may sell their house and use the funds to pay off a home loan of an adult child and then go and live there. They may have a granny flat built for them or something like that. So these things may have already happened. The older person may no longer be able to access their bank accounts or have difficulty understanding things. There's a big trend these days too towards everything going electronic. So whether it's government agencies or anywhere now require you to access your records and to transact electronically. And a lot of older people just can't do that. And so they'll have their friends or adult children come and help them. So they're often giving away their pin numbers or their log in details or something like that so they've actually handed over that power to someone else.

Stephen:
That's a really good point. I remember a couple of years ago I had to apply for the pension for my mum who was in her 90s and the process and the stuff I had to go through with Centrelink to do that and I'm an accountant who fills out government forms every day took me about three months actually get through the entire process. And one of the hold-ups was that I had to have a 100 points identification well mum was living in a nursing home, didn't have a licence, didn't have a passport and a hundred points was problematic. But anyway we got through that in the end but at the end of all that process I sat there and thought well what chance has an older person got of actually working through this process on their own? And so the only way they can get that done is to actually give up that that as you say their control to a family member and you know hopefully they're a trusted family member.

Anna:
That's right and the other thing is that perhaps they'll the client will come in and tell you that oh this is what we've done. So for example it might be a younger person that's come in and said oh yes oh and I've got a new business loan I've borrowed a couple of hundred thousand from my mum you know I'm paying 5 percent so claim that on my tax. And that's a point where you can actually start a conversation and say well it's not financial abuse yet but ask some questions. What have you got in place. Have you got documentation in place? Is there any security for your mum on that loan? What if something went wrong. It's not too late to put documentation in place just because you didn't do it before you started a loan. So a lot of times accountants can help because they can say OK I can see why that's arrangements being put in place but you know this is this is where it leaves your mum or your dad. I suggest you put some documentation in place so that they're protected and you're protected.

Richard:
Just picking up one of the things you mentioned about older people often giving their PIN numbers and so on to a trusted relative. So I suppose the sort of indication might be that there are unusual transactions on their account. For instance, a person who's in a nursing home is paying for holidays in the Bahamas that might be a sign that there's something unusual happening that might alert the accountant when they're going through their financial affairs.

Anna:
That's correct. If you actually have access to their bank statements which you may but you may not. Certainly you can see those things and I think you know as accountants we have become aware of for example a lot of cash withdrawals say from gaming venues and things like that. A trend to that may indicate some sort of a problem as well.

Stephen:
One of the examples we talked about during the task force which was when you're doing the tax return for an older person and perhaps one year they have a lot less interest earned than they had the previous year and you know having these sorts of things in mind means that there should be just starting to ask the next question and go you know what's happened there or as you said before Anna and somebody changes address or they've got some sort of different living arrangement which is unusual for an older person and we just need to ask the next question and find out and see if there is any potential there for abuse or whether we should be actually providing some further advice.

Richard:
Right. Well even if you come across abuse you said that earlier victims often don't report it they don't report it they probably obviously don't acknowledge that probably then don't acknowledge it as well. Well why would people not report abuse?

Stephen:
There's probably a couple of reasons I think Richard. One is that firstly they probably don't always recognize it as abuse or maybe they don't understand the implications of the transaction they've entered into. They don't really understand the potential for it to actually what implication will have for them and therefore that it could actually be regarded as abuse. I think there's other times where they actually probably fear the consequences of reporting it as well. Richard:
Yeah. Yeah. And the consequences though that they might face what would they be?

Stephen:
Well, they'd probably be concerned about their relationships with their families and they'd worry about the consequences there. They don't necessarily want to rock the boat with their family members and feel estranged all of a sudden in some circumstances they might feel a bit ashamed themselves that they've made a bad decision or done something wrong themselves or they may have some shame about the actions of the family as well.

Richard:
Right. So this all adds to the complexity and the difficulty for the accountant to assist. But nevertheless there's a point you made earlier is that we need we do have to assist. So Anna, you made a point that one of the indicators of potential financial abuse is increased vulnerability you mentioned that before. And the increased vulnerability will accompany maybe a lack of capacity on the part of the victim to act for themselves. And I'm interested in the question of capacity. How do I know as a practitioner that my client has the capacity to act. I mean I'm not a psychologist. Is it my role to ensure they have capacity?

Anna:
If you're asking your client to sign off on something then I think you need to be reasonably confident that they do have capacity. If you start to notice a decline in their understanding of particularly their financial and legal affairs perhaps their retention of the information you're giving them a lack of interest. If they're not taking your advice. If they're not asking questions suitable questions back about the advice you're giving them basically you know a decline in communication that might indicate that their capacity is declining or that they lack capacity. If that was the case, an accountant should probably try to bring it to someone's attention. In general, too you'd have to get a medical certificate to say whether or not the person had the capacity to make financial decisions whether they had the capacity to make legal decisions whether they had the capacity to appoint a power of attorney or make a will. So. It is the accountant's responsibility to have that in mind especially when they're asking them to sign things.

Richard:
So the accountant would if the accountant suspects for those reasons that you or those indications that you just indicated or described if they suspect that the person may have a lack of capacity what you're saying is that they should get they would advise their clients to get an assessment done. Anna:
That's correct.

Richard:
So if the client refuses to do that. That's possible isn't it. I mean what what's the accountant then do now. Is it a matter of them to make sure he's get your instructions in writing that you did that you've given this advice? Is that sufficient?

Anna:
Well that's right. I think that perhaps if it did come to a situation where they were required to sign something that they certainly needed to have capacity for then you could actually say well I can't I can't have you sign this document because I don't know that you have capacity to sign it. Once again I think it really depends on your relationship with the client and whether you know of someone that you could speak to on their behalf or whether you could ask them to get someone else involved to assist them to perhaps have the tests done.

Richard:
Well that's all very good advice so, OK, so capacity is one of the issues that we've got to deal with. Well we've understood now a little bit about what financial abuse of older people is. We understand a little bit more about what the extent of it is and who are the likely perpetrators are and what motivates them. We've talked about how people might be reluctant to take action on their own behalf to prevent it because of all sorts of reasons one of them may not be aware of it. The other is that they may want it may not want to upset the rest of the family. There's all sorts of reasons but Stephen I'm just wondering now that we are aware of what this issue is and the role of the accountant in it what is the advice should the accountant give that will help a client avoid exposure to potential abuse?

Stephen:
Yeah interesting. Richard one of the one of the findings is that people who stay connected to the community are far less likely to suffer financial abuse. I'm not too sure what sort of role us accountants have in advising people to stay connected to the community but sometimes that might be something we can be mindful of.

I think more from an accounting point of view we want to make sure that they seek advice whenever they've got a particular transaction they're worried about whether it be financial advice or legal advice and make sure they stay informed make sure they ask questions so that they do know that they understand completely and they don't just agree with the with things. Probably is a good idea to discuss those sorts of transactions with others. And that's where that connection to the community comes in if they've got some trusted friends they can actually have those discussions with them get those third party points of view. And probably I think it's making sure that they keep their wills and things like powers of attorney and so on up to date so probably regularly reviewing those with their solicitor to make sure that they are all in line with their wishes. And what's happening in their lives as well. So I think those sorts of things probably would help them avoid some of that exposure.

Richard:
Well, Anna mentioned before some of the indicators that might indicate that abuse is actually happening and if an accountant suspects that that's a pretty confronting situation for an accountant. Is there ever a temptation for accountants or professionals in general who suspect abuse to if you like turn a blind eye and if they did why would they do that?

Stephen:
Well it's always easier just to not get involved isn’t it?. And I think probably from the things we've talked about sometimes accountants really are not sure if it's actually abuse. They're probably not sure how they're going to be able to help the person and what sort of advice they give and don't want to do something that might make the family situation worse. So there's no doubt it's a difficult complicated area but really our responsibility as we mentioned before is not just to ignore it. And that's part of the reason why the tool kit was developed to perhaps give some of those tools to accountants to enable them to decide how they're going to go about those things. One of the common problems that we often face as accountants is this issue of conflict of interest. And often it might be the client of ours maybe the person is actually doing the abusing or it may be that both parties are clients of ours. So we have this issue of conflict of interests and do we really want to raise it when the major client of ours is the one who is potentially the one doing the abusing. So again we just need to be careful that we don't turn a blind eye in those circumstances.

Richard:
Well, I'm just wondering now then I know this is an area that you are very familiar with Anna and that's the powers of attorney and guardianship and administration and I just wondered what role the powers of attorney play in all this. There have been changes recently of course in particularly Victoria. Can you tell us a little bit more about what powers of attorney are and what is meant by guardianship and administration and how these tools can be used to mitigate or prevent abuse?

Anna:
Oh yes well I think a lot of people have more of an idea of what powers of attorney are and that is where you have someone who we call a donor who gives that power to someone else to act on their behalf who is the attorney. So there are several types of powers of attorney. There are medical powers of attorney, general powers of attorney, financial powers of attorney. So the donor gives the power away to someone else. Usually they give the power away if they lose capacity. That will be a condition of the power of attorney but it can be effective immediately as well. In order to if you give the power away on loss of capacity the attorney would have to prove a loss of capacity before they take on the power. Where someone doesn't have a power of attorney in place and then they lose capacity, someone would have to actually apply to VCAT to be appointed a guardian in the case of a medical or lifestyle, life choices role or an administrator if they wanted to deal with the person's financial and legal affairs. The difference is that a power of attorney is appointed by the person themselves whereas a guardian or an administrator is appointed by VCAT.

Richard:
OK that could help clarify that. I suppose it could happen. What is your view on the appropriate response for an accountant who is asked by their client to accept appointment as their attorney under a power of attorney?

Anna:
I think an accountant would have to think very carefully and assess the situation before accepting the role. Stephen talked about conflicts of interest. The power of attorney role is a very personal role. I think it's dealing with all of their financial and legal affairs. There's no way we can really estimate what how much time we would need to put into that role. It may be difficult and impossible to charge for that time. It may be much more difficult than you expect it to be. But certainly if you were also their accountant tax agent or financial adviser, I think the conflict of interest would probably prevent you from taking on the role of a power of attorney. Richard:
So your advice would be that accountants decline gracefully and advise that somebody else be appointed to that role?

Anna:
That would probably be preferable. I think we can probably be of more help to our clients by being their accountant than by being their power of attorney.

Richard:
OK. It makes sense sounds like good advice. Well we talked a bit about preventing elder financial abuse and we're saying that probably in accountants experience they're more likely to come across potential abuse than actual abuse. But Stephen I'm wondering if and I think Anna mentioned before the sort of indicators that there could be that there is abuse taking place. If the professional suspects that the client is a victim of abuse what action do you recommend that they take?

Stephen:
Well, I think first and foremost Richard you need to be mindful and respect the relationships and the rights of the older person to be responsible for their own decisions. And also as I say the relationship with their family members. So to that end as we raise the issue with them it's often useful to explain that it's our obligation to look after their interests and make sure that they're making informed decisions. So that really puts the onus a little bit on us rather than them. We want to make sure that they have access to independent advice and that might be from us if we can give that independent advice if we don't think we can be independent because of some sort of conflict of interest then we can make sure that they will refer them off or they get advice from somebody else. Do they do get that independent advice. Because I think we want to know we want to make sure that they exactly know what the implications of their decision are before they make that decision. I think in extreme cases we may want to refer them off to one of the specialist services that we mentioned earlier in the Podcast notes.

Richard:
Yeah. OK so I mean well that for the accountant. How would you summarize the professional and ethical considerations that confront the accountant in coming into contact with what they suspect is actual financial abuse. How do you recommend that they be dealt with?

Stephen:
Well I think as a profession our primary responsibility is to the community. And so therefore we can't ignore it has significant implications right across the community partly for the perpetrators partly for the people who are being abused and their ability to perhaps fund their own retirement and lifestyle and that can also then lead to implications for the community in terms of the community then having to step up to the plate to fund the fund the retirement of some of those people. I think more directly in terms of dealing with it we need to consider a couple of our particular considerations being confidentiality of information and more commonly that issue of conflict of interest which we've mentioned a couple of times so if we're advising different parties we need to make sure we deal with that issue of conflict of interest. If we can't deal with it or resolve it ourselves then we'd be better to refer them off to refer one of the parties anyway off to someone else so that we make sure they get that independent advice.

Richard:
OK. So we have an ethical responsibility to do something about it but we can't take control of it I think that's basically what you're saying is it still remains in the hands of the client.

Stephen:
And it is a difficult area. They've got the family relationships they're trying to maintain. So not all decisions are made about finances and money so they're obviously weighing all those things up in terms of making those decisions.

Richard:
Right, OK.

Stephen:
We just want to make sure they're not being coerced or pressured or you know making a decision without having a real capacity to understand what the implications are.

Richard:
Yes, well for all those reasons Stephen just mentioned that we did talk about this before the instances of abuse most often go unreported. So Anna I'm just wondering what if the person who appears to be a victim of financial abuse doesn't actually accept that abuse is happening. I mean you can see abuse you're a practitioner you know all the signs you suspect that this is really going on. But if the person doesn't accept that it's happening is it still abuse? And what does the accountant do in this situation?

Anna:
Well, it may be still abuse. And that is something that actually would be a situation that would arise I think because a lot of the time the older person is dealing with the perpetrator is someone that they trust someone that they love. You know it might be their child or a dear friend it may be their carer. So they may also be very reliant on that person. And very grateful to that person for other things. And so they don't want to get that person into trouble. And they may not understand the loss either that they've just suffered so as accountants I think that we need to educate them as well. And point out that oh you know it may not appear to be abuse but do you understand the situation, do you understand what the loss is here or what the impact is going to be on you. One of the things that older people have to do these days is fund their own living arrangements that may be that they have to go into aged care or something. But a lot of people don't want to accept that that is might what they might end up doing. And so they don't think they need all of the assets that they hold now. But it may very well be that they will need them in the future.

Richard:
Well, that's a good point. Well I'm thinking then this is an issue of abuse that the person doesn't want any interference. What about if the accountant suspects that actually a law has been broken and we've talked about abuse and the literature shows that it's quite common for financial abuse to exist with other forms of abuse such as emotional abuse and physical abuse. What about if the law if the accountant suspects that the law has been broken how should they do an account and deal with that sort of situation?

Anna:
Yes, well this is probably one of the most difficult and delicate situations that an accountant might see particularly where it would go further than financial abuse. We have to be very respectful of our clients. There's a limit to what we can do. We will do our best to prevent abuse to educate people about abuse. We should probably make sure they understand that the law has been broken. We can advise the client that they can go to external agencies to get help. In Victoria Senior Rights Victoria in other states there are similar bodies and they're people that can actually talk to the client or the victim and guide them towards legal representation or legal advice on the situation.

Richard:
OK. All right so basically what we're saying there is that the accountant needs to take certain steps to protect themselves. Actually the accountant can't tell whether the law has been broken or not they're you're suspecting it so they need to make that quite clear to the client that they suspect that the law has been broken. And they also would you recommend that they include some sort of clause in the letter of engagement in relation to the limits on confidentiality. I think about confidentiality here because if they report if the accountants report anybody to the police it would probably break the confidentiality of the relationship. Do you think that they should include anything in their letter engagement in that area?

Anna:
Well, yes, I think that that is advisable. Each case you'd have to look at it on its own merits as to what advice you would give the client anyway. And the accountant would probably look at getting their own legal advice before they would do anything like that anyway.

Richard:
OK, thank you. Well, I was thinking then from the point of view the accounting firm Stephen from the accounting firm or practice how can the how can the accounting firm or practice respond professionally in terms of supporting their staff who might come into contact with financial abuse?

Stephen:
Yeah an interesting one because we can have an understanding of whether we need to make sure our staff are able to deal with it as well. I think a good starting point would be a training session for our on the issue for our staff and probably I'd use the resources that are part of the CPA toolkit. It's a pretty well developed tool kit and I think it'd be really useful from there to perhaps develop some sort of policy or put a policy in place that will allow of our staff to be able to act appropriately if they come in contact with elder abuse and that might include some things like being able refer it off to a partner have a discussion or something like that, have some guidelines within the practice as to how we're going to deal with it. And I know in our practice what we would probably look to do is try and develop that policy with staff after having that training session so that they can also be involved with it as well. I think that the CPA toolkit is such a good such a good resource for this sort of thing. And often it will only be a matter of making sure they're aware of what's there as well.

Richard:
The CPA tool kit it as a good source of advice. That's good advice. Anna so there is a CPA toolkit, we're going to talk a little bit more about how you can get access to that in a minute. But where can the accountant get more information on this where can they turn to advice and support?

Anna:
Well as well as the CPA elder financial abuse toolkit, there's a CPA ethics hotline. There's within the toolkit itself there are a lot of links. There is a link to the tool kit and a lot of other referral agencies on the podcast web page that you're listening to. And also I'll just mention that within the financial the elder financial abuse tool kit there is a really good checklist that accountants can use with their staff you can use it with your client get it out use it with your client. And the toolkit itself has an extensive referral kit to all sorts of resources and agencies.

Richard:
OK. Well, sounds like the toolkits is the place to go. Yeah. Well I think that has given us a good overview of this topic. Anna, Stephen, thank you very much for your enlightening talk today. This is a difficult area but an increasingly important one and it's one in which the professional accountant seems to me can play a key role in addressing in fact as you've explained as a trusted adviser the accountant has both an ethical and professional responsibility to address this issue and the tools you've discussed provide a very useful basis for an appropriate response on the part of the accountant. The CPA Australia toolkit that Stephen and Anna have mentioned can be accessed via a link on the show notes or on this podcast page. There you'll find all the information we've discussed today and more with links to further information and to organizations who can provide further support and advice for clients. We trust that you found today's discussion informative and helpful on behalf of CPA Australia. Thank you Anna. Thank you Stephen and thank you very much listeners for joining us today.

Anna:
Thanks Richard.

Stephen:
Thanks Richard.

Outro:
Thanks for listening to the CPA Australia Podcast. T